“You remember I said you should call me Luke, right?” I said once we’d stepped out into the cold night. “You’ve been taking care of my sheep and plowing my driveway for months now. And when you feed a man’s ruminants, it bonds you, Murray. In many cultures, we’d be family.”
Murray snickered. “You’re really funny, Mr. Williams. I—” His face fell comically. “Oops!Luke. Forgot already. Sorry! It’s just that all Olin ever says at home is ‘Mr. Williams does’ this and ‘Mr. Williams said’ that, so it’s hard to remember. You’re his favorite teacher, you know, and my parents are really happy with how much he’s learning.”
“Aw. That’s nice to hear.” I taught first grade, so I didn’t have a lot of competition for the “favorite teacher” title, but it was nice to hear that people thought I was doing a good job… even though I was sure certainotherparents would disagree.
I couldn’t help glancing across the snowy fields that separated my property from Sunday Orchard and the family of sweet, gorgeous lumberjacky types who lived there. I quickly looked away before my thoughts could linger too long on one lumberjacky type in particular: Webb Sunday.
Not everybody has to like you, I reminded myself.It’s okay.
Murray kept talking. “And for sure you’re Aiden Sunday’s favorite teacher… even if you did kind of lose him that one time and Webb got all upset.”
I sighed. “I was doing my job,” I mumbled in protest, though it didn’t seem to matter how many times I repeated it since Webb didn’t seem inclined to hear me, and neither did anyone else. “And I didn’tlosehim.”
“Sure.” Murray nodded sympathetically. “You just sort of… misplaced him.”
I sighed again.
Murray wasn’tentirelywrong.
I wasn’t a person who had regrets—mistakes were just learning opportunities, after all—but I greatly, profoundly, completely,entirelyregretted listening to Principal Oliver last fall when she’d told me to let Aiden Sunday leave school with his mother though I knew the boy lived with his dad.
In my defense, I’d only been in town a couple of months. I hadn’t understood the contentious custody dispute brewing between Webb Sunday and his ex-wife. I definitely hadn’t understood that Amanda Sunday was known in the Hollow for being thoughtless and irresponsible and that Principal Oliver was one of her only remaining local friends. I’d simply gone along with what my boss told me, despite an uncomfortable feeling in my gut.
But Webb hadn’t cared about any of that when Aiden hadn’t gotten off the bus that afternoon. He’d lost his mind. And roughly four months and eight attempts to explain myself later, Webb still crossed the street when he saw me coming, so he clearly still held me responsible.
The worst part was, Webb wasn’t the only person in town who wasn’t joining the Luke Williams fan club. I got the idea that the rest of the folks in the Hollow didn’t quite know what to do with me either.
People were friendly, of course. Heck, I didn’t think folks around here knew how to beunfriendly. They always smiled and said hi. Waved back when I waved first. Chitchatted if I initiated it. Nobody was overtly unkind to meever.
But also I definitely didn’t feel like I was one of them. Not yet.
And being an outsider didn’t just mean that my social calendar was absurdly empty, it also had a real impact on my ability to do… well,anythingrelated to my house.
The renovation loan I’d tried to get from Pippin Hollow Credit Union had been denied due to a length-of-residency clause that no one had mentioned when I’d first applied.
I’d tried to sell off a portion of my newly acquired land to finance the repairs, and I’d been told I needed a “clean title”—which apparently meant getting someone to search through a billionty years of Ben Pond’s family’s history and mark out the lot lines.
The only lawyer in town, Curt Simons, had claimed a conflict of interest and referred me to a guy in Two Rivers, who’d taken my retainer and promptly stopped returning my calls for three months.
It had taken a minute for me to connect the dots, but then I’d understood. The SundayswereLittle Pippin Hollow. Their family had lived on their land for centuries, and everyone in town—even someone as new as me—knew that if you wanted a person to coach kids’ soccer, or contribute to your fundraiser, or help build your barn, Webb Sunday was the man to ask.
So if Webb didn’t like me, it made a strange kind of sense that the rest of the town would keep me at arm’s length, too. I couldn’t even be mad about it, because it was the kind of small-town loyalty I’d craved to be a part of…
It just stank that Iwasn’ta part of it.
But I kept hoping that if I worked hard and stuck around long enough, things would change.
“So.” I gave Murray a brilliant smile. “Exciting plans for tonight, Murray?”
“I’m heading over to the Sundays’ place to pick up Aiden for a sleepover with Olin. Even though the roads are clear, they’re saying they’ll probably cancel school again tomorrow, ’cause it’s not safe for kids to get to the bus stops. A second snow day will be really great, eh?”
“Oh. Yeah. That’s…” I reflected on what I’d done that afternoon—sitting in the drafty, overcrowded camper trailer that had been Ben Pond’s actual home, all by myself, frogging out the stitches of the crochet project I’d ruined. “…great.”
If by “great” you meant “likely to end with me eating every carbohydrate in my camper, shaving my head just to see how it looks, and watching organizational TikToks while I ignore the utter chaos of my own living space.”
“Hey, if you’re heading to the Sundays’, would you mind dropping something off for me? I’ve got a book I promised Aiden. Let me just grab it.”
I trudged across the plowed driveway to the 1978 Coachman Cadet and pulled open the door with a spine-jarring yank. The rusty hinges squealed, and a few flakes drifted down to join their brethren in the snow below. The nineteen-foot travel trailer wasn’t much to look at, but at least it didn’t have snow fallinginsideof it. Plus, it had electricity, gas heat, running water, and my Wi-Fi hotspot. What else could anyone need?
